AN UNEXPECTED MISFORTUNE
As Nan lay on the secret drawbridge, she heard a stealthy footstep on
the cement floor of the trunk-room. The step was light, and, plainly,
there was but one person approaching. It must be one of the girls.
Certainly it could not be Mrs. Cupp, for she was heavy-footed. Nan
wished she had not been so foolish as to run, for she was really
frightened because of her position over the old cistern. If the intruder
was only one of the other girls, coming to open a trunk, she could
easily have hidden the doll behind the boxes and waited until the girl
had gone up stairs again before putting Beautiful Beulah properly away
in her nest.
In a few minutes Nan sat up and began to creep off the dropped door. As
her weight was gradually removed from it, the weights began to raise the
door into its usual position. There must have been some secret fastening
to hold the door shut, that was broken when Nan's weight was cast
against the plank wall.
Her fall had been just at the right place to start the door swinging
downward. Now, when she carefully stepped away from the partition,
having risen to her full height, the secret door swung up and closed
tightly. She could not feel its edge on either side with her fingers.
But that was not what she was most interested in just then. The secret
door puzzled her, but the step in the cellar impressed Nan as being of
more importance. She peered around the tiers of boxes to see the other
girl.
It was Linda Riggs.
The trunks belonging to those girls whose names began with "R" were
right next to those whose owners' names commenced with "S." The electric
bulb near Nan's trunk gave Linda light enough for her purpose. Nan saw
her take a key from her purse and open her trunk with it.
That would not have been surprising, only for the fact that the key had
no tag attached to it, such as Mrs. Cupp fastened to all the trunk keys
left in her charge. Nan saw that Linda watched the door of the
trunk-room sharply as she rummaged to the bottom of her trunk. The girl
was evidently down here without Mrs. Cupp's knowledge, and was afraid of
being caught.
"That's another key!" Nan whispered to herself. "Why! she owns two and
Mrs. Cupp doesn't know it."
She watched Linda without saying a word. Linda, on the other hand, paid
no attention to Nan's open trunk. Seeing no other girl about, probably
led her to believe that whoever had been in the trunk-room ahead of her
had carelessly gone out, leaving her trunk open, and the door open and
the lamp lit, as well.
Linda soon obtained the article she desired--a small, flat parcel--and
with this, after relocking her trunk, she went away. Nan was curious
enough to watch to see how Linda went up stairs. Surely she had not come
down past Mrs. Cupp's open door.
That suspicion was verified when Nan saw Linda turn into the passage
leading to the kitchen. It was an hour in the afternoon when one might
pass up the kitchen stairs without being observed by the busy women
preparing supper. Besides, as Linda was always giving presents to the
servants, they might be conveniently blind to her movements. Nan went
back with Beulah and put her carefully away in the box at the bottom of
the trunk. The mystery of the secret door was overshadowed in her mind
by the actions of Linda Riggs.
"I guess we're all deceivers," Nan considered. "I'm deceitful myself.
And Linda Riggs is positively dishonorable. Mrs. Cupp would be very
angry if she knew Linda was down here without permission and had a
private key to her trunk.
"And all we girls seem to be just delighted to break the rules, or try
to fool the teachers. It really is dreadful! I guess we all must think
that rules are made only to be broken.
"Oh, dear! perhaps if there were no laws none of us would care to go
wrong," concluded Nan, perhaps striking the key-note of all human
frailty.
She went rather soberly up stairs and delivered her own trunk-key and
the door-key to the matron, who she was glad asked her no questions. The
afternoon mail had just arrived. May Winslow was acting as postmistress
for the week, and the girls were crowding about the office table on
which May had sorted the letters.
Either Dr. Prescott or Mrs. Cupp had run through the mail first. Letters
from home were never held up. Suspicious looking letters had to be
opened in the matron's presence. Nan's only missive this day was an
unexpected one from Scotland.
She had grown to know just how the foreign mails were carried and when
to look for a letter bearing the Emberon postmark. Somehow, this
unexpected epistle frightened Nan.
She hurried up to Room Seven, Corridor Four, to read the letter alone.
Her chum was not there and for once Nan was glad of that. Sitting by the
window where the light was fading, Nan opened her letter.
"My dearest child:--
"Since writing you day-before-yesterday, we have received quite a shock.
Your dear father is in such a state of mind that he cannot write to you
about it. I am calm myself, dearest Nan, because I know that our
Heavenly Father will not see us troubled more greatly than we can bear.
"I have, all the time, had perfect confidence in the final adjustment of
Mr. Hughie Blake's estate and the establishment of our clear title to
it. It seemed as though this already was a fact. But a new difficulty
has arisen. Just as Mr. Andrew Blake was about to take possession of the
property in our name, a court order restrained him. A new branch of the
family, at least, a newly discovered claimant by the name of Blake, has
appeared. There are two sisters, maiden ladies, who claim that their
mother was married to a man named Hugh Blake, who afterward separated
from her. They have only recently found their mother's marriage lines
and their own birth certificates, proving the marriage and their own
title to any property of which their father may have died possessed.
"Mr. Andrew Blake pooh-poohs this claim as he did the others. He is
positive that Mr. Hughie Blake was never married. He was, in fact,
notoriously a woman-hater. But while the Laird of Emberon was on his
Continental travels many years ago, his steward, Hughie Blake, was for
two years away from Castle Emberon. These two years correspond with the
years in which these Blake sisters claim their father lived with their
mother in a North of England shire.
"This is the story, dear Nan, the details of which will not interest you
much, only as they affect our financial situation. We are greatly in Mr.
Andrew Blake's debt at the present time. Your father is writing by this
mail to the lawyer in Tillbury to raise money on our little home by a
mortgage to pay these debts and to pay your school bills for the
remainder of the year.
"This holding up of our fortune is only temporary, I am sure. I am
trusting in our Father's goodness still. I will not be alarmed. But the
delay worries your poor papa very much. Our friends here are very kind
to us, and Mr. Andrew Blake urges us to accept his financial aid again;
but Papa Sherwood can be, you know, the most stubborn of men when he
wants to be."
There was more of the letter--intimate, tender passages that Nan could
have shown to nobody. Her mother's heart was opened wide to the girl, as
it always was when they were together. "Momsey" and she had been much
more intimate than mothers and little daughters usually are. Mrs.
Sherwood now confided in Nan as she would have done had they been at
home together.
The hour darkened, and Nan could no longer see to read as she sat by the
window. She put the letter away and bathed her eyes and face before
turning on the light.
In fact, she was still in the dark when Bess came romping in. Nan seemed
no more quiet to Bess than she had for several days.
"I declare!" cried Bess. "I'd just as soon room with a funeral mute, as
with a girl who won't talk. You're the limit, Nan Sherwood!" and she
went off to join some of the girls who were under no ban of silence.